Beyond Words
by IHaveAGaurdianVampire
Summary: In an AU, Joan is a dreamer who is writing a series of books on a certain slayer.In sunnyD, Buffy searches for Spike, hearing he has attacked Willow. A wish is made and two worlds collide with life changing effects on both side of the divide.early s4
1. Chapter 1

BEYOND WORDS

Part 1- Things That Go Bump In the Night

Joan sank sullenly onto her bed and stifled her tears. _Stupid men. Stupid me_, she lamented, guiltily glad that she had finally convinced her roommate and best friend Hazel that she could leave and finish her research report in the library. Joan didn t need to be consoled; she just wanted to be alone.

It was all Parker's fault really, she knew that, and yet she still couldn t help feeling a little rejected. He was the one who seduced her, lured her in with fake vulnerability and affected charm, making her think he wanted her to be his own and only, and she was for the , the harsh light of day revealed him to be a big faker. A big dumb faker with big dumb smoldering eyes. She wanted to poke those eyes out with a 2b pencil next time she saw him, or make some scheme to embarrass him in front of all the entire student body, or just give him a really good slap. But she did none of those things...

Instead she did what she always did when she wanted to escape; she took out her notebook out from under her pillow, and wrote.

* * *

_Buffy was shocked. First he had neglected to call her or even *_talk_* to her since they d made love, and that was days ago!_

_She had gone looking for him to try and work things out between them and now here he was chatting up some blonde floozy as if Buffy had never existed. After all, what good was slaying if she couldn t keep a steady boyfriend._

_"Oh y'know it hit me hard, my dad. Since then I just don t put stuff off anymore. It s about living for now", he drawled,practically salivating over the young coed._

_*_If only he was a demon so I could have an excuse to slay him_*, Buffy thought._

_Instead she just managed a surprised, "Parker?"_

Joan had second thoughts about using his real name in one of her stories but dismissed them. The jerk so didn't deserve a pseudonym.

_He looked faintly annoyed by her presence as turned and greeted her, "Buffy. Buffy Summers_. (Who did he think he was? Principle Snyder?) This is Katie Loomis."

_"What's going on?", Buffy asked, not entirely sure she wanted the answer._

_"Hey Katie, you re gonna be late for class. I ll catch up later, okay?" he said, the picture of innocence._

_"She a friend of yours?" Buffy asked incredulously._

_"Yeah, you'd like her a bunch. (_Eww, you wish!) _So, what's up?"_

_"Well, um you didn't call. I'd, uh I understand if you were busy or sick or something."_ working your way through the Summersville College female population I wouldn t understand_, she added silently.  
_

_"It's only been a few days. You need to talk to me about something?"_

_"Is everything okay?"_

_"Sure it is."_

_"It is?" Buffy fidgeted uncertainly. Perhaps he really had just been busy and her anger was misplaced?  
_

_"Sure." Parker said, smiling that all-American boy smile._

_"Oh, um, so maybe do you wanna do something?" she asked_

_"Sure, we could do that absolutely." _

_"So what about tonight?"_

_"Oh... Uh... I think I'm supposed to get together with some people later ..." he said dismissively._

_"Parker did I do something wrong?" Buffy asked. She couldn t shake off the feeling that a pattern was forming; as soon as a guy got her into bed, he changed. It made her think it was almost her fault, that she was responsible for changing them._

_"Something wrong? No, of course not. It was fun didn't you have fun? Watch out how you answer that. My ego is fragile."_

_Buffy could feel the rage bubbling up inside her again, heat rising in her cheeks. "You had fun? Was that all it was to you?!"_

_She d show just how much 'fun' she could be!_

_Before he could open his mouth to reply, Buffy summoned all her strength and delivered a bone crunching roundhouse kick to Parker's chest sending him flying over a park bench, ricocheting off the side of cafeteria before landing with a thud at the feet of the college team quarterback--_

* * *

Joan?

"What? Who? What?" Joan glanced up to see Hazel standing at the foot of her bed, next to a Trish, a pretty brunette whose room was across the hall from theirs. Hazel s red hair bobbed as she plopped a box of Chinese food down on the bed in front of her.

"I got your favourite!" she said perkily, Trish just stood quietly in the background. "C'mon Jo, I know what will cheer you up," she picked up the notebook beside Joan, "How about a little slayage? Trish heard about our Buffy books we ve been writing and wanted to join in. Hope you don t mind." She said grinning widely, coming up with new hijinks to get our fictional band of Scoobies into always excited her, especially if she could work some magic into the story.

"I heard about what happened with that Parker boy, I m so sorry." Trish said, placing a sympathetic hand on Joan's shoulder. "All men are disgusting misogynistic pigs." Joan started to laugh but was quieted by the deadly serious look in the other girl s eyes, and just gave a solemn nod instead.

"So what were you up to? I mean, besides wallowing. Not that you aren t allowed to wallow, you have full wallow-privileges." Hazel babbled, picking up a pen to work on the story.

"Well, I was trying to decide whether Buffy would punish Parker by beating him up or by getting Willow to cast a hex on him?"

"Oh no," Hazel replied, "Buffy's way too classy to do that."

LATER

The three girls were huddled around the open notebook, blankets and pillows and remnants of Bok Choy strewn haphazardly across the floor. They had eventually decided that instead of beating Parker up, or giving him boils, Buffy would simply need a new love interest (Trish had conceded that while men were still worthless animals , Buffy dating someone new would make Parker suffer). Of course if Joan had to pick someone for Buffy to fall in love with it would be Spike, the sarcastic and funny yet deep and poetic gorgeous punk vampire, who unlike all the other characters, except maybe Buffy, was completely hers, 100% her own imagination, her own perfectly imperfect man.

Of course her friends had said no, he'd left in the middle of book three and even though Hazel agreed that Buffy and Spike were fated for each other, it would ruin the dramatic tension if they got together happily at this stage of the series. Even so, they decided to write him back into the story any way; his return to Sunnydale with some idiot girlfriend, his being captured by an underground military group which performed scientific experiments on him, planting a Behavioural Modification chip in his head (Hazel said it was possible with today s computers), before he eventually escaped and rushed to the slayer for information or... refuge.

And that's where they left him when Trish and Hazel said that they were going to be late for their 'Wicca Woman-Power' sleepover and apologetically headed for the door. "I'm really sorry for how Pigheaded Parker behaved, Joan." Hazel said, "You re beautiful and sensual and strong and he s missing out."

"Are you coming on to me?" Joan smirked, "was making Willow bisexual a way of you trying to tell me something?"

Hazel just laughed awkwardly. "No!" she flustered, "I-I just thought that more social minorities should be represented in the story!" This was the same speech she always gave when talking about Willow, her alter-ego; a Red-headed, Wicca bisexual Jew. She was merely making sure social minorities were represented. _Right_

"Hey, Hazel?"

"Yeah?" she said, grabbing her coat .

"How can you be Jewish and a Wicca? They re like two totally different religions." Joan asked.

"I kinda think of it like having a dual citizenship." She replied with a smile, glad for the change in subject. She d been recently dumped by her high school boyfriend and had been going through a lot of confusing stuff since.

"Y'know you should give Buffy a nice normal human boyfriend." She suggested as she headed for the door.

"Urggh. Human boys. Who can be bothered?" Joan sighed flopping onto her bed. _Who cares about humans when dreamy vampires are around,_ She mused.

"You re absolutely right. Human boys are scum!" Pipped Trish who had been oddly quiet throughout our interlude.

"Yeah. I wish that the Buffyverse was real though, don t you?" Hazel said, her hand resting on the door knob.

"Yeah, I do." Joan agreed, "I wish Spike was here, at Summersville U." she laughed, but at that moment, a big part of her was hoping that by some magic her wish could come true. Hazel nodded dreamily and Trish's eyes lit up and she broke into an uncharacteristically sly smile...

* * *

Spike stumbled as fast as he could through the horribly sunny streets of Sunnydale; almost tripping over the cast-off blanket he had swaddled himself in, as he turned into an alleyway, searching for shade. He was starving, he was burning and most of all he was _humiliated_. The bloody commandoes carted him off to their naff underground lab and he manages to work his way out only to find they'd made him harmless. HARMLESS!

If he ever survived this ordeal Spike thought he'd probably be so shamed he'd have to go and kill himself with something pink, possibly involving frills.

_The Slayer is going to pay for this!!, _He thought, as he huddled in the shadows near her nancy-  
pancy watcher boy s apartment. _Gives Englishmen a bad name, with all that tea-drinkin and glasses-wipin'._

Spike was so hungry, he hadn't eaten for days.

He couldn't; thanks to the army wankers. He knew that if he faced the Slayer Posse now he would try to attack them out of sheer starvation, and he couldn t do that either, not just because he knew he would be unsuccessful but because he needed what information or... refuge he could get from them. His minions would kill him if they ever found out about his weakened state.

_Goddam minions. Don t make em like they used to._

He reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out his lighter and a worse-for-wear packet of cigarettes. He knew that if he had a smoke, it would block out his hunger enough so that he could get what he needed from the Slayer without being turned into Mr. Big-pile-o-dust.

He went to light the cigarette, but then the strangest thing happened; his lighter began to glow red, and before he knew it he was covered with seemingly painless blue flame.

"Bollocks!" he exclaimed, and dropped the lighter before he was sent hurtling into nothingness.

* * *

Joan lay curled up on her bed asleep where Hazel and Trish had left her hours before; her head filled with images of a sculpted, angular face, piercing beautiful blue eyes and peroxide blonde hair...

She sighed contently in her sleep before a deafening CRASH jolted her into wakefulness.

The door to her closet had burst open, sending clothes and coat hangers everywhere before a figure landed face first with a painful sounding thud next to her bed.

"Ow. Bloody hell!" the obviously _male, English_ figure grunted as he pulled himself up onto his elbows slowly, still concealed by clothes and darkness. "Ow!" he added again for good measure.

Joan was stunned for a moment.

_Strange man. In my bed room. In my wardrobe! Not good!_

Joan screamed with all her might and only then, did he seem to notice her presence in the room.

"You!" the concealed stranger shouted as he turned to her, throwing himself towards her bed. Joan tried to escape but he was too fast and before she could even move, he pinned her arms to the bed, lunging towards her...

"_Oww!!_" he exclaimed, suddenly recoiling from her, "SLAYER!! _What have you done to me?!_"

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

'Through the Closet and What Spike Found There'

DISCLAIMER: forgot to put one on the last chapter…whoops! Hehe anyway, I don't own the characters, Joss Whedon and his TV minions do. Sorry about SunnyD not really featuring in this chapter, the Buffster will be back next chap and here to stay! I wrote this to fill up time on my summer vacation so I hope you enjoy it!

Joan blinked in surprise at the stranger's outburst before grabbing a hefty flashlight to defend herself .

Before she could make her legs work again another inexplicable thing happened; the intruder crumpled to the floor, cussing audibly as some invisible force dragged him feet first into the closet. The man clawed at the carpet in defiance but to no avail and within seconds he had disappeared behind the door with a loud thud, the door having closed itself of its own accord.

"Okay that was kinda Twilight Zone-y there for a second." Joan said, voice shaking from the adrenaline and the absurdity of what she had just seen. Joan tentatively rose from the bed, taking a moment to muster her nerve as she turned towards the closet.

"Um…uh, are you still in there by any chance?"

The reply was muffled from inside the closet, 'Yes, you stupid bint I'm still inside your bloody closet.'

Joan gathered her resolve, she wasn't a sissy, she could take a grown man in a fight if she had the upper hand, "Okay, you have to the count of three to come out of there. "

"Can't" said the closet sounding more annoyed by the minute.

"Why not?"

"I'm trapped here, aren't I? Open the door, this is ridiculous."

Spike didn't hear a reply, and he wondered whether the slayer might just leave him there 'til he starved. He really didn't fancy dying in a cupboard full of girly clothes. It would totally ruin his reputation as Big Bad, especially after the 'no killing for Spikey' thing.

Joan wondered if he was lying, and ready to pounce on her as soon as she opened the door. She really didn't want to die in yummy sushi pajamas. It would totally ruin her reputation as a strong and independent girl, especially after the whole Parker thing.

However, after waiting a while she almost thought she could hear sobs on the other side of the door, and even though she knew she should've just called the cops, instead she found herself turning the handle of the door.

As soon she did this the man in the closet threw himself towards the doorway only to be stopped by some invisible barrier. Joan just stared at him as he calmed himself and grumbled, "Being a vampire is a bloody nuisance sometimes. Be a good girl and invite me in."

_Vampire? _Joan thought, taking in her unwanted guest for the first time. He was wearing docs, black jeans and a leather duster and he was running his hands through an unmistakable shock of bleach blond hair, frustration melting into his trademark smirk as she registered who he was with disbelief…

"Spike?" Joan asked stumbling on her words a bit "How? I mean, huh? I mean, is it really you?"

"What did you trip over in a graveyard and bonk your pretty little head on a tombstone?" he said in confusion, "Of course it's me, you're that one who zapped me and kept me prisoner in your lab and in your closet! C'mon Slayer let me out, you've got some serious explaining to do!"

Joan poked the vampire skeptically, "How can you be here? You're like totally fictional!"

"Fictional? Do I look bloody fictional to you?" he asked incredulously, "Mythical, yes. Legendary even, but—Oh you think you're pretty clever don't you? Think you can distract me from what you've done to me!"

"I haven't done anything to you!"

"Liar! I swear Slayer, when I get out of here your undead meat!"

"You won't hurt me," Joan said, grinning in realization, "You've already got that chip in your head. You can't hurt anyone."

"Bitch! I knew it was you, I knew that you did it to me." Spike roared from his closet cage, as Joan went to retrieve her notebook. It may hurt him but Spike thought it just might be worth the headache to take her out

"No Spike I know what happened to you but I didn't have anything to do with it, and if we can call a truce, I'll prove it to you." He may not be able to attack her without causing himself pain but still, Joan didn't want to take any chances.

"Done." Spike sighed in defeat

"Okay, come in then." Joan muttered absently, stifling a giggle as spike tumbled out of the closet. She still thought this was a psycho dream, but she decided to play along with it.

"So Slayer, what's the what and where's the where." Spike mumbled sitting down next to his mortal enemy on the bed. He was still hoping this was just an unpleasant nightmare, but decided he might as well play along with it.

"Stop calling me that!" Joan exclaimed, "I not the freaking slayer and you're really starting to bug me."

"What?" asked Spike confused once more. In his logic, what looked like the slayer, sounded like the slayer and smelt like the slayer must be the slayer.

"My name is Joan. J-O-A-N. I'm not your precious Buffy."

"Your off your bird."

"I can prove it; I know stuff about you you've never told her."

"Really?" Spike raised an eyebrow and rested against her cushions, he was more relaxed around this Buffy, and she was more pleasant to him, that's for sure, even if she was clearly insane. "Like what?"

Joan smiled searching for the best bit of information she had written about Spike, "Like, on the night that Dru turned you, back when you were William, she said that she could see a burning baby fish swimming inside your head."

"How did you know that?" he asked quietly, searching her pretty green eyes, "Did you track down Dru as well?"

"No, I wrote it."

* * *

"I'm sorry." Joan said whilst Spike was still reading her stories.

"Hmm?" he said looking up from the pages of ink.

"I'm sorry, before I said I didn't do this, but I guess I kinda did. I wrote it."

"Oh that's very comforting love," Spike chuckled sarcastically, "It's been the highlight of my night finding out my life's controlled by the whim of a stupid little girl!"

"I swear, I'll tie you to the flag pole before sunrise if you're rude to me one time!"

"I'm sorry," spike grumbled, lying back on the bed, "I just hate the hell mouth and its stupid alternate dimensions. The second dimension is always exactly the same as the first only crappier." Joan just glowered at Spike.

Spike thought she looked kinda sexy when she was angry.

Joan finally noticed how dry his lips were, his deathly paleness and the dark purple rings around his eyes.

"Oh my god, I am so stupid you must be starving!" Joan exclaimed, reaching impulsively to touch his hollow cheeks. She sprang from the bed and waited for him to follow. Spike was surprised that girl seemed generally concerned for his wellbeing; he had expected her to throw him out at any second.

"C'mon Spike let's go!" she shouted, throwing his duster at him

"Where are we going?" he asked

"To get you what you need."

* * *

Joan was practically running as she turned towards the back entrance to the hospital. There were three hospitals in the area (Summersville had a abnormally high accident rate), with the nearest being only two blocks away from the campus. She paused, waiting for her undead companion to catch up, she may not be a slayer, but she was fast.

Joan sighed; she had been acting like more of a moron than usual ever since Spike had somehow been summoned through the magic door. She couldn't believe that she had taken the time to apply lip-gloss before heading on this ludicrous escapade, but hadn't bothered to put on proper clothes. Spike chuckled as he rounded the corner and was greeted by the sight of the Slayer's twin in crouching in the bushes waiting for him, wearing pink pajamas and Nikes.

"The blood bank is one the first level, we can get to it through those double doors." Joan said, emerging from her hiding place, indicating the service entrance 20 feet away.

"How do you know you're way around the hospital so well?" Spike asked, offering the girl a cold hand to help her to her feet.

Joan shrugged. "I'm very clumsy." She answered honestly, clutching the vampires hand for a little longer than necessary. Spike just grinned at her admission, still hardly believing that this relative stranger was willing to break into a hospital to help him.

Without further ado they ran for the door, Spike's leather duster flapping in the breeze. "You've got a lock pick in your pants, right Spike?" Joan asked as they came to a halt at the locked door.

Spike arched an eyebrow and smirked, "Now Scribbler, that sounded a bit dirty." He drawled, earning a slap from his accomplice. He just grinned widely before retrieving the desired object, making light work of the heavy duty padlock.

"Wait!" Joan yelled just as the bleached vamp opened the door.

"What is it?" Spike asked, looking around in alarm.

"Should we synchronize our watches?" Joan asked, deadly serious.

"You are completely daft." Spike sighed as they headed into the abandoned hallway to seek their bounty.

* * *

"What's your poison?" Joan asked her companion as she strode purposely around the biohazard freezer in her jammies.

"What?" Spike replied, the scent of blood, even if only cold dead blood, overwhelming him in the tight space.

"What's your favorite blood type?" she explained, having found the stockpile of every type of blood under the sun.

"Oh, I don't really have one…" Spike said, thinking that her asking was curiously thoughtful, "Just grab some of each."

"Do different blood types taste different to each other?" Joan asked as she began to quickly fill a brown duffle bag with bags of donor blood.

"I suppose people with the same blood type do have an underlying similarity in taste," he began, "but there's more to it than that. When a vampire bites someone, they taste more than their blood," he strode towards her, "we drink the essence of who that person was, their emotions, their experiences…we take them in us, and in a way they become a part of you forever after, or at least I think so." Joan had filled the bag to capacity by now and had turned to face him, urging him with her eyes to go on.

"When I drink from a human, I feel like _I _am human again, only somehow more alive. It can be brutal and ugly, but it can also be the most intimate experience two beings can ever wish to share," his fingers lightly caressed the skin of her neck and Joan shivered, but not because of the cold. He thought about what it would be like taste her, slayer or not, her blood was definitely potent, and he wondered whether he would be spared any pain if she gave him her blood willingly. Their eyes met and he thought that maybe, just maybe, in his weakened state this kind girl might give him what he wanted, if only out of pity. He wouldn't hurt her; just take enough so he could always remember her unique taste. He leaned into her and whispered, "There can be nothing more intimate then the taste of someone's soul…"

Loud footsteps echoed down the hallway, breaking all thoughts of intimacy between the two. "Crap!" Joan muttered under her breath, peeved that they had been interrupted but also because she had almost let a vampire take a bite out of her. It was an orderly in search of supplies from the freezer and Joan knew she had to think of a distraction fast. "Stay here and be quiet. When I lead them away, you leave. I'll meet you out the back."

Spike gave her a puzzled look before she pushed him deeper into the freezer and step out into the hallway, closing the door behind her, just as a young male doctor turned into the corridor.

* * *

The doctor was clearly startled, "Uh...Miss, what are you doing here."

Joan giggled childishly, thankful for once that she was in her PJ's "What am I doing here, he asks. This is my castle, good sir, for I am the dark princess."

Spike listened attentively from behind the door, thinking that Joan sounded exactly like an Americanized version of Drusilla.

"You're a patient here." The doctor assumed, "But why are you down here?"

"I wanted a party, but no one will play with me. They love their beds more than they love me." Joan whimpered.

_Blimey,_ Spike thought, _this bird could give Dru a run for her money_

"Come with me," the orderly said gently, figuring one of the mental patients had managed to ride the elevator again. "I'll take you where you belong."

Joan turned gingerly and joined the doctor, telling him that she was from ward 3, before stepping into the elevator, remembering from her previous visits to the hospital that that was the psychiatric ward.

"I'm naming all the stars." Joan said abruptly to distract the orderly as Spike ran past the elevator with the bag full of stolen blood.

"That's the ceiling dear." Said the doctor congenially, used to these kind of antics

"I can see them. But now I've named them all and there's great confusion."

They stepped of the elevator on the third floor and the doctor took her by the arm and led her towards a kindly middle-aged nurse. Joan panicked, her plan had dependent upon the doctor leaving her unattended once they'd entered the ward so that she could make a quick escape back to the elevator.

Instead the nurse led her to an office along the black wall telling her that she would soon return with the files so they could find the room where she belonged. Joan had to think quickly before they found out there was no Joan Saunders admitted at Summersville Mercy Hospital.

She quickly found the door was locked, apparently loonies weren't very trustworthy, and so she looked to the window as her only form of escape. She couldn't believe how much trouble she was getting into over one stupid vampire. By a stroke of luck she found a set of pipes running down the wall to the ground just outside of the window. _Oh well_, she thought, _At least all that rope climbing in PE has finally come in handy._

* * *

Spike was getting agitated waiting at the back of the building for the girl. It had been way too long. Riding the elevator, eluding the doctors and riding it back down again should of taken five minutes at most, and it had been at least fifteen.

It was okay to be nervous about the Scribbler, he reassured himself. She was the only thing tying him to his own world, the only thing that reminded him he was real in this mundane dimension he had wandered into. It wasn't because he fond of her or anything, he told himself.

Even so, he was considering going back behind enemy lines to retrieve her when to his complete surprise, he saw a figure clad in bright pink pajamas shimmying down a pipe from a window three stories high. He watched in awe as the blonde, who supposedly possessed no exceptional powers at all, made her way down before landing with a soft plop beside him.

Joan brushed herself off and stood up, looking even more ridiculous then before after tearing the hem of top during her descent. When she looked around she found Spike beside her staring at her and she tried not to blush.

"What?" she demanded.

"Are you some kind of superhero in this dimension?" Spike asked in amazement.

Joan was cut short. "Nah," she replied at last, smiling, "Superpowers are overrated, what with the whole 'with great power comes great responsibility' gig. Boring much?"

Spike chuckled.

"Nope, I'm a free agent and I do whatever I want, and you best remember that William" She continued, turning to face him once more, with a lethal glare. "_Don't ever try and bite me again_."

Spike was equally terrified and mesmerized by her power, "You're crazy." He said to her as they strode off into the night. "I like a bit of crazy in a girl."

TBC


End file.
